The engraving (according to Paulson, this is the third state) is related to a monochrome oil sketch in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from which however it differs in several details. The print was published as a companion to the ‘Distressed Poet’, the original of which is in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham. When advertising its publication in the press in November 1740, Hogarth promised that the set would be completed with a third engraving on the theme of Painting, but this never materialised.

Published in:Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988